ABSTRACT
IN the discussion of the settlement, mention has been made of those who do not desire to settle as the time comes round. These are mainly Bulls and Bears. To use the time-honoured definition, the Bull is one who buys what he does not want, and the Bear is one who sells what he has not got. The terms were used in their Stock Exchange sense long before the Stock Exchange came into existence—a hundred years before, in fact. At all events, they were in full use when the eighteenth century was in its teens, when dealers in stocks and shares were wandering homelessly about Change Alley. This is shown by the literature of the time. And soon after the middle of the eighteenth century we find Horace Walpole writing to ask a political friend if he knew what a Bull and a Bear and a Lame Duck were. “Nay, nor I either,” wrote Walpole, anticipating the answer, “I am only certain they are neither animal nor fowl, but are extremely interested in the new subscription.”
